The present invention generally relates to an elevator group supervisory control method, an elevator group supervisory control system, and a display apparatus for an elevator group supervisory control system. More specifically, the present invention is directed to an allocation control for determining an elevator with respect to a produced hall call, and also, directed to evaluation of the allocation control.
Elevator group supervisory control systems may provide elevator operating services in more effective manners with respect to users by handling a plurality of elevators as one group. Concretely speaking, while the plural elevators are supervised as one group, in the case that a hall call is produced at a certain floor, a single optimum elevator cage is selected from this elevator group, and the hall call is allocated to this selected elevator cage.
As indexes for allocating a produced hall call to which elevator, allocation evaluation functions are employed. As conventional technical ideas using the allocation evaluation functions, the below-mentioned examples are exemplified:
1). JP-B-7-72059 discloses an allocation evaluation control in which a temporally equi-interval condition is employed as an index.
2). Kurosawa et al., “Intelligent and Supervisory Control for Elevator Group”, The Transactions of Information Processing Society of Japan, Vol. 26, No. 2, March in 1985, pages 278 to 287, and JP-A-10-245163 describe allocation evaluation controls in which service distribution indexes are employed.
3). JP-A-5-319707 describes an allocation evaluation control executed by considering a waiting time caused by a virtual call.
4). JP-A-7-117941 describes an allocation evaluation control executed by considering an operating scheme evaluation value.
Also, JP-A-1-192682 discloses such an example that with respect to three control targets such as a waiting time, a riding time, and a passenger crowded degree within an elevator cage, important degrees as to these 3 control targets are represented in a radar chart.
The ideas of the above-explained conventional techniques can be summarized as such an idea using an evaluation index to which the below-mentioned two evaluation indexes are weight-added.
(1) An evaluation index based upon a predicted waiting time with respect to a real call (both a new hall call, and a previously issued hall call for not-yet-provided service),
(2-1) an evaluation index based upon fluctuation degrees (for example, interval distribution of respective elevator cages) as to intervals of respective elevator cages,
(2-2) an evaluation index based upon a predicted arrival time with respect to a potential call,
(2-3) an evaluation index using a predicted waiting time of a virtual call, or
(2-4) an evaluation index related to an equal condition of temporal intervals.
The latter-mentioned evaluation indexes (2-1) to (2-4) among the above-explained evaluation indexes correspond to evaluation indexes related to hall calls in the future, and thus, these evaluation indexes (2-1) to (2-4) will be referred to as “evaluation indexes related to future calls” hereinafter. When this expression is employed, the conventional techniques may be expressed by that such an evaluation function is employed to which an evaluation index value related to a real call and an evaluation index value related to a future call are weight-added.
Also, the radar chart of JP-A-1-192682 represents coefficients of allocation evaluation formulae in the relevant time range, or the traffic flow in the building. However, this radar chart does not indicate the allocation basis with respect to the respective calls. Concretely speaking, this radar chart shows the weighting coefficients (importance degrees) of the controls which are uniformly effected with respect to all of the calls within the relevant time range. For example, with respect to a call (e.g., call of 8-th floor UP direction) produced at a certain time instant, the radar chart represents contents of allocation evaluation values of the respective elevator cages, but does not represent why a second elevator cage is allocated to this call.
In the case that the evaluation functions based upon such numeral values are employed, there is a problem that the decision reason of the allocation evaluation can be hardly grasped at first glance. In other words, the correspondence condition and the relative condition between the real call evaluation index values and the future call evaluation index values as to the respective elevators cannot be understood at first glance. As a result, there are some difficulties in such a case that designers, maintenance service men, supervisors, and the like will check validity of the allocation results in later. Also, there are some cases that the allocation reason of these elevators is questioned from users of the building. Similarly, it is difficult to make up an easily understandable explanation as to the elevator allocation reason.
In an actual background, the future call evaluation index has been recognized only as the auxiliary role. In case of elevators, future calls implies such a random phenomenon that occurrences of these future calls can be hardly predicted, and therefore, it is practically difficult to predict that persons present in a building push hall call buttons for which floor directions at what time (hours, minutes, and seconds) and at which floors. As a consequence, such an idea that a user who has being requested a service is handled at a top priority is actually acceptable. Namely, it is apparently an acceptable idea that the real call evaluation index is mainly employed. However, very recently, since personal identification techniques using IC tags and the like are developed and image processing techniques using cameras are popularized, such an environment capable of detecting flows of persons within buildings in advance is being established. As a result, it is predictable that the future call evaluation index will be taken very seriously in near future, as compared with the real call evaluation index. In other words, as to the allocation index in near future, these two indexes (namely, both real call evaluation index and future call evaluation index) are equivalently handled. Then, the following aspects may surely become important ideas, that is, how to evaluate both the real call evaluation index and the future call evaluation index, while how to balance these two evaluation indexes. Then, it is also important to represent contents of these two evaluation in an easily understandable manner.
An object of the present invention is to provide an elevator group supervision control method, an elevator group supervision control system, or a display apparatus for the elevator group supervision control system, by which elevator allocation is carried out, while relative conditions among a plurality of evaluation indexes having different view points such as a real call evaluation index and a future call evaluation index can be readily grasped, and also, a balance of the respective view points can be easily understood.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method, a system, or a display apparatus, capable of readily evaluating an allocation control with employment of a plurality of evaluation indexes having different view points, while relative conditions of the respective evaluation indexes with respect to the respective elevators, and also, a balance of the respective view points can be understood at first glance.